Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

Henry David Thoreau

Not quite Heaven

Monday October 17, 2011
Cooper’s Rock State Forest
West Virginia

First off I want to
say how much I appreciate all of
your comments. I know only
a few of the folks who read the blog
comment but it is SO nice to know
who is out there and what they think
So thank you all!!

Boy Sunday night was a GREAT quiet night last night.
As you saw, we were the only
ones in the campground.
We thought seriously about staying
a few more days to enjoy it even more fully
but we have a lot of appointments
to take care of in Charlottesville
and the sooner we get them
underway, the sooner we
can be on our way again.

We were out by 9:00
but by the time we stopped by the dump
and got the car on the dolly we have decided is
a tad too small for our Honda Accord, it was
9:50. Still that counts as “Out by 10, in by 3”.

Zanesville is very close to the West Virginia line
and soon there we were and there were the
Alleghany Hills.

East into Pennsylvania.
Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania.
The states are flying by.

We nearly always stop at the welcome center for a state
and get the highway map so that’s what we did.
Here’s Winnona among the big boys.

I got a real kick out of the signs on the sides
of these two trucks. I didn’t realize when
taking this picture that the sun made it nearly impossible to read.
I should have taken a second and better one.

The slogan on the rear reads
”Our job SUCKS & We GUARANTEE it”!!

I suppose we’ve all had one job or another
like that but this is the first time I’ve seen it
guaranteed with emphasized pleasure.J

Soon we were headed back South and returned to West Virginia.
You have to be careful when traveling in West Virginia.
A lot of their roads, ok MOST of their roads are
”country roads” and may not take you home or
back where you belong. This I know from many years
of living right next door.

So having taken a carefully planned route,
173 miles later we landed at Cooper’s Rock State Forest
McCollum Campground.

This is a lovely small campground with only 25 sites
I’d say there are 10 that can handle Winnona
and two or three that can take things larger.

There was one other camper here when we came
and only 2 or 3 more showed up later on.

I’m sure it is more full in the summer and they do
have a reservation system but not all sites can be reserved
so there appear to always be walk-ins

We took pull through site #15
with electric for $20.70. During the summer
West Virginia kindly gives a senior discount
whether you are a West Virginian or not.
During the summer rates are higher
and the $20.70 is the senior rate.
But off season everyone’s rate is $20.70
and West Virginians pay half that.

This site is terrific!
Take a look.

Here is Duckie’s view

Next time I might try Sites 22 or 16 which
are pull throughs on the other side of the road and thus
have only forest out the entry door side.
But as the campground is sparsely populated
at this time of year, it doesn’t matter.
The sites around us are unoccupied.

We had thought we might stay two or three days
here and try out some more and a little longer
hiking but on the way in we saw several signs
telling us the hunting season here in this State Forest
runs from October through February.

The hiking trails map cautions you to wear blaze orange
when hiking during hunting season.

Well then,
I think not.

Having lived in the foot hills in Virginia
for 30 years I know better than to go out
hiking during hunting season.
Any place blaze orange is called for,
I’m not there.

So we are only staying this one night
and will move on to Virginia tomorrow.
I’m sorry about that and definitely would like to
return to this sweet spot.

This will be faster moving than we are used to
driving two days in a row.
And you’ve probably already noticed that
173 miles is WAY over my usual quota
but in this life you go with the flow.

At least it's next door. You should be able to arrange a return trip easily.We really liked W. VA. but we did have difficulty if we were off the Interstates. Hope everything goes well for you back in VA.